It is a tragedy, perhaps, that the Roman model was abandoned. The modern era, for all its material comforts, is perhaps incapable of returning to it. The Roman model of ‘diversity’ sought not to emphasise ethnic differences, but to relegate them to a secondary and ultimately inconsequential status. For a while, all that really mattered was that one aspired to the status of civis Romanus. Roman diversity also required something that the modern West is incapable of providing: a critical, but in the end self-assured and even triumphalist vision of its own history, and with it a belief in the value of one’s own society and the ability to make membership of that society a desirable end in itself. The modern West is fractured, and just as in the Rome of third and fourth centuries pleas to encompassing civic virtues seem to hold less appeal in the face of fragmentation and conflict. We cannot, and should not follow the Romans in all matters, but we might learn something valuable if we take their emphasis on a universal and aspirational mode of civic participation seriously.

The arrogance of most of the comments reflects exactly the type of smug self-appointed superiority that has led to widespread resentment of the left among reasonable people. To the extent that such views correspond to those at Google, they vindicate the essayist’s claims about the authoritarian and repressive atmosphere there. Even the response by Google’s new VP in charge of diversity simply ignores all of the author’s arguments, and vacuously affirms Google’s commitment to diversity.

In 2014, Google started publishing employee demographic data and pledging to invest in major initiatives to recruit a more diverse workforce, spending at least $265 million on the efforts.

Despite Google and its parent company’s public statements in support of diversity in technology and multiple outreach and community programs, it seems to have made little headway since it began publishing its workforce demographic data three years ago.

As typical, the Atlantic comes perilously close to the answer, only to bury the lede and move on.

“… at most college campuses the attitude is that men are the problem. … I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists.”

Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.”

Though advocates complain that few in higher education are doing enough to keep those men who do get there from leaving, there’s consensus that men’s reluctance to enroll in the first place isn’t necessarily the colleges’ fault. The problem has its origins as early as primary school, only to be fueled later on by economic forces that discourage men from believing a degree is worth the time and money.

In other words, men don’t feel welcome on college campuses any longer. Educations are mostly taught by women for women. And because most women tend to gravitate to the social sciences the pushes for diversity often don’t include men as the focus remains on women not being highly represented in certain educational paths.

Ironically, the media response to the memo simply validates the now ex-employee’s point when he writes:

unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber

and

silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.

What is left unsaid in most of the coverage is that the memo’s ideas are also a deadly threat to thousands of jobs in the “diversity” industry (e.g., Google’s VP of Diversity). People whose jobs depend on an uncritical acceptance of an ideological position naturally react badly to any critique of it.

Original memo: http://diversitymemo.com/#reply

Which is to say that, regardless of one’s view on the contents of the memo, the ostensibly “neutral” position is not likely to be a neutral position at all. Or, put another way: One can’t avoid delving into this in depth by contending bluntly that the details don’t matter, when, for better or worse, they absolutely do. As I wrote a couple of years ago, I am quite happy for private companies to respond to their customers and the culture in which they exist, and I do not wish to impose any laws that would prevent them from doing so. But to acknowledge that this is what they are doing is merely to move our point of inquiry from the companies themselves to the forces that inform their decisions. There is a severe imbalance in those forces, and one that’s worth remarking on. There’s no neutral position here, I’m afraid.

Do we find that “countries that lack gender equity in school enrollment” and “stereotypes associating science with males” have fewer women in tech?

No. Galpin investigated the percent of women in computer classes all around the world. Her number of 26% for the US is slightly higher than I usually hear, probably because it’s older (the percent women in computing has actually gone down over time!). The least sexist countries I can think of – Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, etc – all have somewhere around the same number (30%, 20%, and 24%, respectively). The most sexist countries do extremely well on this metric! The highest numbers on the chart are all from non-Western, non-First-World countries that do middling-to-poor on the Gender Development Index: Thailand with 55%, Guyana with 54%, Malaysia with 51%, Iran with 41%, Zimbabwe with 41%, and Mexico with 39%. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is not exactly famous for its deep commitment to gender equality.

We should insist on procedural justice — which is to say, we should insist on the rule of law and on the equality of all people before it. But we ought not allow that insistence to be a bunker into which we retreat when we do not wish to think too hard about the real social and economic distance between black Americans and white Americans. The fact that we passed a new set of rules in 1964 is not in itself an accounting for what came before or an answer to what has happened since.